Year 13 Geography Study Day

10th December 2018

Writing: Alex Telford (Year 13)

Editing: Matthew Human (Year 11)

Year 13 students spent a day at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington on an A Level Geography study day. This was a chance to look at both human and physical aspects of the course in greater depth, through a range of lectures from geographers who have studied and now carry out research.

There were talks on coastal processes and vulnerability, and changing places and hazards. The last of these was given by Dr Sarah Henton De Angelis, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool currently working on developing volcano infrasound - a piece of technology that monitors volcanic activity with the end goal of helping mitigate volcanic hazards. Many of these lectures provided a mixture of core subject revision, as well as providing new case studies which we might want to use in our answers come the summer.

Arguably the most interesting lecture was delivered by Prof. Jason Dittmer on global governance. This linked to the topic of Superpowers in the A Level course, the most recent human topic studied by all three classes. What was interesting was that Prof. Dittmer focused on quite a specific example of the governing relationship between the US and the UK, with his starting point being that post the Second World War the two countries realised that there were benefits of government collaboration, not just in times of war, but also in times of peace. This was the creation of a diplomatic ‘protocol’ of sorts, an agreement, between the USA, UK and other highly developed nations which allowed the circulation of materials, bodies and information between the countries.

He continued to talk about how this relationship had developed into the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the problems the countries faced in the standardisation of weapons, ranks and other military matters, and finally about the future of the UK and US alliance with Trump in power and the looming Brexit. Overall, it was a productive and educational day exploring our A Level topics in greater specific detail with these specialist geographers.